Wednesday, February 16, 2011

28mm Napoleonic Pioneer Assault Teams


I completed these three pioneer combat stands for the 'When Things go Boom' scenario that I put on for the guys recently. Two are French and one is British with a mish-mash of figures from Foundry, Victrix, Perry and Sash and Saber.



In 'Republic to Empire' a brigade's pioneers can be commandeered together to form specialized assault teams to aid in defending or seizing built-up objectives. These hard nuts are quite the terror in close combat but the downside, of course, is that they are amongst the first to take casualties in a pitched fight. 'Lasalle' also features Engineer bases so these boys will serve for future games in that system as well. I quite like the inclusion of these elements to a game as it builds the excitement when players have to 'ante up' their forces for close combat.


As you can see I didn't have enough pioneer castings to fill all the stands so I included a selection of grenadiers to back them up. This seemed reasonable as I would think grenadiers would be a common choice for leading these kind of assaults. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get these done for the game I would have modeled them on cobblestone bases with some of the figures carrying ladders, pickaxes, etc. - well, maybe for the next group.

These brawlers will count for 12 points in the Spring-Thaw Painting Challenge.

2 comments:

  1. Very nice Curt, it was a great idea to build up the stands with support troops

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  2. Thanks! I'm currently trying to find evidence that grenades were used during the Napoleonic period. They certainly were prevalent during the 17th and 18th century (thus the official designation of 'grenadiers') so I find it odd that they would lapse completely from service. I would think that in assaults on built up areas that grenades would be a very effective weapon. Nonetheless, it has little mention except in naval combat. I was just thinking that it would be a fun modeling project for these types of bases.

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Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)